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$60 a chapter for a new series without a fan base? Good luck. Also about the quality, while it is alright, it is no where near high quality. Not to mention that the individual that you say is poaching, was not poaching and even announced that he/she was going to translate it since no one had put a chapter out for almost a month, and you and other translators have treated this project as secondary from the start. Honestly, you are no more in the right than they are, you only show interest in this series now because others have decided to take it up. I would rather people translate this because they want to, not because they want a few extra donations.

The threshold is set by the number of characters per chapter. We opt for literal translations with very limited localization. Therefore I consider our chapters fairly high quality due to the fact that they stay as faithful to the source as possible with very limited rewriting.

A month isn’t that long in the translations community. Furthermore, he asked us beforehand if we would mind if he took it over, but I explicitly stated that we had more translators now so we would be releasing chapters once again at an increased pace. Our increase in release pace has nothing to do with the other guy. So yes, he’s a poacher.

We translate this project not because of money, but because we like the story. Sponsored chapters are just there if people want to donate.

Here come the excuses, first off having actually been a professional translator for the size of the average chapters versus the quality that you release, $60 is asking quite a bit $45 at most would be barely appropriate. Second, what is “faithful to the source”? Word for word does not guarantee the most accurate translation to another language, there are grammatical as well as idiomatic differences to the languages. “Faithful,” in this case, is entirely subjective and just saying that you are faithful does not make your quality any better, considering how many errors come out in the English translation even though you supposedly have editors and proofreaders. Third, a month is a very long time in the translation community, especially in the Chinese novel area, and just because he was being polite and asking first doesn’t mean he does not have a justification for taking over a series that has constantly been in the background and never taken as a main project for any site. How convenient that you suddenly find more translators after he says he wants the project. If donations were just donations then that is one thing, but for people to ask for donations so that more chapters come out then you create problems and makes me and others question you really care about the series. Also, Did you bother contacting any of the authors for their consent to take donations for translating their works? I doubt it.

I don’t know where you’re getting your prices per character but I highly doubt you can find a professional translator willing to translate a 3000 character for $45. Seriously, find me a professional translator who is willing to translate 3000 characters while maintaining maintaining our quality at the very least for that price. Most of them would translate it literally and/or completely rewrite parts of the story. And it was convenient that I found more translators just as he emailed me. Would you like to see the emails? I can send them to you if you can’t believe it. Regarding the community and donations, I won’t even bother to comment on that since we clearly have differing views.

I don’t think anyone one is going to donate. The other guy seems to release faster, and as for quality, there’s no notable difference. And since this is a side project, i don’t think you can overtake him.
Why don’t you try to work together?